My Name Is Asher Lev (35 page)

“Good. How are you?”

“They say that what remains of me is in excellent condition.” He smiled tiredly. “I believe no one. But do not tell Tanya I said it.”

“You’ll make a hundred,” I said.

“You think so? I do not think it would be worthwhile. The world is not a pleasant place.”

No, I thought. No. It’s not a pretty world.

“Asher Lev.”

“Yes.”

“Your crucifixions are great works.”

“Thank you.”

“The second completes the first. Without the second, the first would not be complete.”

I was quiet.

“They are culminations. You will now have to begin something new. You do not want to repeat yourself.”

“No.”

“I sculptured a
David.
I am proud.”

I said nothing.

He turned his head and gazed out the bedroom window at the sun and the sky. “I created a new
David
,” he murmured. “A breathing
David.
” He turned and looked at me. “You liked Florence?”

“Yes.”

“A gift?”

“Yes.”

“A gift,” he murmured. He looked again at the sun and the sky framed in his window. “I used to think the gift was a
blessing.” He was quiet a moment. “Be a great painter, Asher Lev.” He was still looking out the window at the sun and the sky. “That will be the only justification for all the pain your art will cause. Now I am very tired. I think I will sleep a little and return to my present major preoccupation. I wish you good luck, Asher Lev.” He closed his eyes and was silent. The walrus mustache stirred faintly with his slow breathing.

I asked Tanya Kahn, “What do the doctors say?”

“They are optimistic.”

“Is he able to draw or paint?”

“No. Perhaps in a few weeks.”

“Goodbye,” I said. “I wish him a complete recovery.”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Asher Lev. Good luck with your show.”

I rode the elevator downstairs and came out into the winter sunlight and took the subway home.

    I remember our meal that Friday night. “Sing zemiros with me, Asher,” my father kept saying. “It’s good to have you home.” The three of us sang together. At one point during the meal, he put his head back and closed his eyes and began to sing his father’s melody to Yoh Ribbon Olom—not in pain this time, but in quiet exultation. His son was home; his wife was well and at his side; his work in Europe had been a miraculous creation out of nothing; now new work lay ahead with Jewish students on tumultuous college campuses. At the meeting Saturday night, they would discuss opening Ladover study centers at some of the major universities in the country. New work, new creativity, new journeys for my father. He sang and his eyes glowed, and my mother and I sang with him.

I did not know what to do. I could not sleep. In the synagogue that Shabbos morning, I prayed for a miracle, for an idea,
for anything that might help me. The Rebbe joined the service at Borchu, then sat on his chair near the Ark, his face concealed by his prayer shawl. Rebbe, help me. Please. Help me. All right. Yes. I’ll tell my father. I’ll sit down and talk to him. This afternoon. Papa, listen. I felt Mama’s lonely torment. I wanted to paint Mama’s torment. I wanted it to be a painting, a great painting, because I love painting as you love traveling. I work with oils and brushes and canvas as you work with events and deeds and people. There is nothing in the Jewish tradition that could have served me as an aesthetic mold for such a painting. I had to go to— I had to use a— Do you understand, Papa? Why are you looking at me like that, Papa? It isn’t the sitra achra, Papa. It’s your son. There was no other way, no other aesthetic mold— He would not begin to understand. He would hear the word “crucifixion.” He would see the crucifix looming monstrously before his eyes. He would see rivers of Jewish blood. He would— Rebbe, help me. “Sing zemiros with me, Asher,” my father kept saying later during the Shabbos afternoon meal. “Rivkeh, Asher, sing zemiros to the Ribbono Shel Olom.”

I went with him back to the synagogue after the meal. We sat together at his table near the Ark and listened to the Rebbe’s talk. Later, when Shabbos was over, we walked home together beneath the trees of the parkway. It was cold and dark. There were patches of ice along the street from the snow that had fallen earlier in the week. My father walked with care, limping slightly.

“Asher,” I heard him say.

“Yes, Papa.”

“You’re quiet today. Are you worried about tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“It’s an important day for you.”

“Yes.”

“Wherever I travel now, there is always someone who knows your name. ‘Are you the father of Asher Lev, the painter?’ they
ask me. It’s a very strange feeling. Asher Lev, the painter.”

I was quiet. The wind blew coldly through the street.

“Is it a strange feeling to be famous?” he asked.

“I’m not famous, Papa.”

“It’s a strange feeling to me to hear my son called Asher Lev, the painter. When I grew up, a painter was someone who painted the walls and floors of our house. People ask me what you are, and I can’t bring myself to tell them you’re a painter. I say you’re an important artist. Tell me, is it proper to ask how much people pay for your paintings?”

“The small ones sell for about three thousand dollars.”

“Three thousand dollars?” He looked astounded. “So much money for a painting?”

I did not respond. We walked carefully over a tall frozen snowdrift.

“Three thousand dollars,” he murmured. “Who pays so much money for paintings?”

“They pay more, Papa.”

“Who?”

“Collectors. People who buy paintings because they love them or because they want to invest in them.”

“Invest?”

“Paintings go up in value if an artist’s reputation gets better.”

“Yours have gone up in value?”

“Yes.”

“Who are these investors, Asher?”

“Rich people, mostly.”

“You’re painting for the rich?”

“The rich can afford to buy many oil paintings, Papa. Also, museums.”

“You’ve sold paintings to museums, Asher?”

“Yes.”

He stopped and stared at me. “You didn’t tell me.”

“It happened this week.”

“Which museum?”

I told him.

His mouth fell open. “In Manhattan? Here?”

“Yes.”

“What are they paintings of?”

“They’re—paintings.”

“We’ll see them tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“A museum,” he murmured, beginning to walk again. “My son in a museum.” He seemed unable to believe it. Almost despite himself, his dark eyes glittered with pride.

My mother was astonished and proud when he told her. “What paintings are they, Asher?” she asked.

“Paintings.”

“Of what, Asher?”

“We’ll see them tomorrow, Rivkeh,” my father said. “Come, we have a meeting to attend.”

I saw my mother give me that strange troubled look.

They left for the staff meeting with the Rebbe. I called the gallery and told Anna Schaeffer I would not be coming over tonight with my parents. Yes, tomorrow. Of course I would be on time for the meeting with her West Coast representative. Yes, I would be nice to her Munich night-club owner. Good night. Good night. I hung up the phone. I roamed the apartment, feeling cold with dread. I should have destroyed them. Who needs them? What good are they going to do the world? I had painted them; wasn’t that enough? No, it wasn’t enough. They had to be moved into the public arena. You communicate in a public arena; everything else is puerile and cowardly. I could not sleep. I lay awake hours in the dark. I heard my parents come in. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. They sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee and talking softly. I thought I heard the
word “museum.” They went into their bedroom. I remained awake. There was faint gray light along the rim of my window. Is it morning already? Is it Sunday? What happened to the night? I don’t want the night to end. There was sunlight on the window. Inside myself was a darkness of death.

I dressed and prayed and came into the kitchen. My mother stood near the stove. My father was at the counter, making orange juice. His small dark velvet skullcap was pushed forward on his head. He looked at me and smiled. Just in time for your juice, he said, and handed me a glass. I sat at the table. My head felt dull. There was grayness along the edge of my vision. Drink your juice, Asher, I heard my father say. All the vitamins will go out of it. I glanced up and saw my mother looking at me. She served breakfast. Her face was pale. She knew there was something in that gallery I was afraid to have them see. Mama, it’s a crucifixion. I made our living-room window into a crucifix and I put you on it to show the world my feelings about your waiting, your fears, your anguish. Do you understand, Mama? But why didn’t you draw the pretty birds, Asher? And the flowers, Asher, why didn’t you draw the flowers?

My father went into the living room and sat on the sofa, surrounded by the Sunday
Times
and back issues of
Time
and
Newsweek.
My mother came into the room after a while, glanced through the
Times
, and sat down at her desk near the window. I sat on an easy chair and watched them. The Venetian blind had been raised. Sunlight streamed into the room, touching my parents, the furniture, the rug, the walls with a faintly shimmering luminosity, with the warm golden light of the Rembrandt world. I sat there a long time, very still, watching them. Then I rose quietly and went to my room. I had to be in the gallery at one. The opening was at three. I dressed quickly, feeling a leaden heaviness in my arms and legs.

My parents embraced me. They would come between three and four, my father said. Good luck, good luck, my mother said softly. Success, my Asher. She would not look directly into my eyes.

I came out of the apartment house. The air was cold and sharp with winter wind. I took a cab to the gallery. The elevator brought me to the fourth floor. I came out of the elevator and started toward the rear of the gallery. Then I stopped and stood very still and found I was unable to move.

The gallery was a huge hall-like room, with off-white walls, a deep gold-colored carpet, ornamented ashtrays, plush chairs, and concealed and recessed lights. The wall opposite the elevator ran the entire length of the gallery. This wall turned at a right angle and became a wall about half the length, then turned once again and became a wall about one-fourth the length, of the wall opposite the elevator. This last segment of wall then turned at another right angle and led to the elevator. To the left of the elevator, where Anna Schaeffer’s desk normally stood, there was now a bar and a long smorgasbord table. Later, there would be a bartender, waiters, and a quartet playing soft music. I had seen the gallery filled with many different kinds of paintings and sculptures. I had seen it in various states of disarray both before and after shows. I had seen my own works on its walls. I had not thought it capable of too many more surprises for me. Now I stood near the elevator door and stared at the paintings that hung on the gallery’s walls, and I could not move.

I had not seen those paintings since the fall. There on the walls, hung with exquisite taste, were the shapes and forms of the invisible world of my street—my mythic ancestor, my grandfather, wandering, journeying—painting after painting hung so that the effect was subtly cumulative, so that the sense of color and line and texture and shape mounted and heightened. The canvases vibrated. I had not even myself been aware of their
power. I came slowly away from the elevator and followed the walls, looking at the titles—
Village Burning, Young Man Journeying I, Young Man Journeying II, Old Man Journeying, Scholar-Saint, Scholar Journeying I, Scholar Journeying II, Village Death
, and the others; there were about sixty in all. I looked at the titles and the paintings and it was as if I had not done them. I came to the end of the short wall and turned and caught my breath. She had placed the crucifixions on the wall opposite where I stood, before the turn to the elevator. They dominated the wall. I stared at them and felt them leap across the entire length of the gallery and clutch at me. I had not imagined them to be so powerful. I should have muted them. They could not be left so raw and powerful. I felt myself sweating. I felt the long clutching grasp of the canvases and myself sweating and saw my mother tied to the vertical and horizontal lines of the painting and saw my father and mother looking at the painting. Then I turned away, terrified before such an act of creation. Master of the Universe, I did not mean to attempt to emulate Your power, Your ability to create out of nothing. I only wanted to make a few good paintings. Master of the Universe, forgive me. Please. Forgive me. I turned my back to the paintings and closed my eyes, for I could no longer endure seeing the works of my own hands and knowing the pain those works would soon inflict upon people I loved.

I heard a soft voice behind me and turned and saw Anna Schaeffer. She wore a pale-blue satin dress and jewels. There was a diamond tiara in her silver hair. She looked regal.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Isn’t it a splendid show?”

I told her the paintings had been beautifully hung. But didn’t she think the crucifixions were too raw? Didn’t she think I had overdone the play of color and texture? Perhaps she had some oils in the back somewhere. There was still time.

“Asher Lev,” she murmured. “My Asher Lev. Come, there is
someone you must meet. There have been interesting developments.”

We went into the back room. She introduced me to her West Coast representative, a portly middle-aged man with a warm laugh and a double chin. Herbert has succeeded in interesting two West Coast collectors in your work, she said. They are bidding against each other. Do you realize what this means? She sounded exultant. Tell him what it means, Herbert. He told me what it meant. I was not listening. I felt cold. Someone brought me black coffee in a paper cup. Yes, the small ones may now go into five figures, someone was saying. Hello, hello, my dear Schiller, hello, how are you? Yes, this is Mr. Lev. Mr. Schiller of Munich. Yes, yes. Splendid. Of course. We will talk afterward. But there are West Coast people who are interested. Yes, of course, we understand. You spoke first. My dear Schiller, my word is sacred. By all means, look around. Yes. And try the smorgasbord. It is splendid. Do you want another coffee, Asher? You are being a very good boy. No, it is not three yet. Yes, we had to let them start coming in. They were blocking the downstairs hallway. You should come out now and mix with the crowd, Asher Lev. Yes, there is a crowd. She radiated. She looked elegant and regal and elated. A fine crowd. Ah, here is the dear man from the
Times.
Hello, hello. So good to see you. The gallery was jammed. I could barely see the paintings for the people. The bar was very busy. The quartet played soft Viennese music. Vienna is a city of waltzes, Asher Lev. But it is a city that hates Jews. Who had told me that? Yudel Krinsky. I did not see my parents. I saw elegant dresses and jewelry and dignified men in dark suits. Anna Schaeffer selected her people carefully for these openings and always invited more people than she expected would attend. Now it seemed they were all attending. The elevator door opened, disgorging more people. It looked like a theater crowd. My mythic ancestor, my grandfather,
my mother on a cross—and Viennese music, a thriving bar, a rapidly vanishing smorgasbord, subdued conversation, “ooh”s and “aah”s over the paintings, awed stares at the crucifixions. The colors, look at how he worked the colors. But isn’t he an Orthodox Jew? One of those—what do you call them—Hasids? How could he paint that? Who’s the woman? Christ, look at the agony on her face. Christ, he’s good. Ah, Mr. Lev, a pleasure, an honor. What marvelous paintings. Splendid show, Lev. Splendid. I did not see my parents. The elevator door opened once again. There they were, caught in the flood of people that poured into the gallery; my father in his dark coat and suit and his dark narrow-brimmed hat tipped back on his head; my mother in a small dark-brown hat and a dark-brown coat with a fur trim. People swirled past them. They gazed around, looking bewildered. I made my way through the thick crowd. Great show, Lev. Great. Damn good, those crucifixions. First-rate. Papa. Mama. Here. Here. I came between them and took their arms. What a crowd, Asher, my father said. All for your paintings? My mother seemed unable to speak. She looked very pale and her eyes were dark. I saw her trying to look at the paintings. But they were blocked by the crowd near the walls. Anna Schaeffer came over. How do you do? A pleasure and a privilege to meet the parents of Asher Lev. Yes, they all came to see your son’s work. Indeed, he is a great painter. I understand you travel a great deal, Mr. Lev. In my work, one travels a great deal, too. Excuse me, it seems there is something I must attend to. A pleasure to have met you both. She smiled graciously and went away.